Roddick advances at RCA Championships
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-07-23 10:20

Defending champion Andy Roddick overcame blisters on his right hand and a tough challenge from qualifier Michel Kratochvil in a rain-suspended match Thursday to move into the third round of the RCA Championships.

Andy Roddick hits a return against Michel Kratochvil of Switzerland during the third set of their second round match at the RCA Championships, Thursday, July 22, 2004, in indianapolis. Roddick won the match 6-4, 2-6, 6-4, which was suspended last night due to rain. [AP]

Roddick, playing in his first tournament since losing to Roger Federer in the championship match at Wimbledon, won the opening set 6-4 and was trailing 2-5 when a heavy downpour halted play Wednesday night.

Kratochvil quickly won the second set Thursday 6-2 and Roddick's big serve produced a 6-4 victory in the third set.

Even though Roddick had blisters on his palm and fingers, he still produced hard serves that reached 148 mph.

"The weather and the humidity and sweating that much, it's not fun, but it's just something that you have to kind of play through," Roddick said in a statement.

He declined to meet with the media because he was scheduled to play Thursday night against No. 15 Robby Ginepri in a battle of American tennis stars.

Roddick recorded 23 aces, compared to only five by Kratochvil, on Thursday. The top-seeded Roddick won 83 percent of the points when he got his first serve in (38 of 46). Nine of his aces came in the final set, many at crucial points.

"He has a big serve. I wish I could do more with it, but I couldn't," said Kratochvil, who fell behind 3-4 in the final set.

Roddick then lost the first two points of the next game, but managed to hold on with the help of three consecutive aces tied at 135 mph, 138 mph and 129 mph and a 135 mph offering that was returned wide.

Kratochvil used two aces to hold and then Roddick ended the match with the help of two more aces.

In third-round matches, No. 4 Paradorn Schrichaphan of Thailand kept alive his bid to reach the title match for the second straight year by defeating Alex Bogomolov Jr. 6-3, 6-0; No. 10 Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia eliminated Jan Hernych of the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-4 and No. 12 Nicolas Kiefer of Germany ousted qualifier Rik DeVoest of South Africa 6-1, 6-4.

Qualifier Noam Okun of Israel defeated Karol Beck of Slovakia 7-6 (2), 6-2 in another third-round match.

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